


the women on the pier

by littleleotas



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/M, Froday Flash Fiction Challenge, M/M, Miranda Barlow Appreciation, Multi, The Odyssey References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:30:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22214617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleleotas/pseuds/littleleotas
Summary: Miranda, alone on Nassau, ponders another woman left alone on an island.
Relationships: Miranda Barlow/Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9
Collections: Froday Flash Fiction Little & Monthly Specials 2020





	the women on the pier

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Divers" by Joanna Newsom, my favourite Miranda song.

Miranda thinks often, these days, of Penelope at her loom, and wonders what went through her head. Penelope was probably a much better person than she, all pious and faithful and self-sacrificing. But it seemed too easy to dismiss her as having been the way men had written her. Penelope was a woman, and men don’t want a woman, most of the time. They want a paragon, a symbol, a poetic metaphor.

Perhaps Penelope tossed and turned at night, waking un-rested each morning for twenty years. Perhaps she forgot what Odysseus looked like, what his voice sounded like, and when the smell of him faded from his pillow she forgot to miss it. Perhaps she was so bored she wanted to scream, and she pulled the skin off her thumbs just to feel something. Perhaps weaving the shroud was less about saving herself for Odysseus and more about making everyone leave her alone. Perhaps she was angry that Odysseus left. Perhaps she didn’t care if Odysseus came back at all.

Or perhaps Miranda is just a terrible person who wants others to be as terrible as she is just so she feels better about it.

She smashes a plate on the floor and listens to the echo the crash makes. The sound fades into a buzz before disappearing forever. She picks the shards up off the floor and runs her finger over the sharp edges. Part of her misses softness. She remembers the softness of her silk dresses as they brushed her skin falling to the floor, of James’s long, red hair, of Thomas’s skin and gentle touch. But she doesn’t want softness now. Not if she can’t have them.

She wonders if Penelope ever thought about leaving Ithaca altogether. Just jumping on the nearest ship and leaving, making a story that could be her own, shared with no one. Leaving an empty house for Odysseus to return to, and letting the emptiness be the letter that tells him he should have done better by her.

Perhaps that wouldn’t be fair. Odysseus tried.

Miranda goes down to the beach with her hair loose and her feet bare. Sand sticks between her toes. There is always sand between her toes now, even when she wears proper shoes all day. Hazards of living on an island, she supposes. She sits down gracelessly, now that she is free to do so. The wind blowing her hair back from her face carries with it a voice that somehow sounds like both of them at once.

A ship coming into port blocks half the sunset. It isn’t the one she’s waiting for, but her heart leaps anyway. She realises, now, that Penelope was neither perfect nor terrible. She was angry, she was lonely, she was bored, she was heartbroken, and she still loved Odysseus. A woman can be all these things at once. She doesn’t have to choose. She never did.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Dreamwidth as zeusgoesfishing, or Pillowfort/Twitter as littleleotas ❤️


End file.
